


Ghosts

by Dominatrix



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drama, Gen, Hurt, Much hurt, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 08:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dominatrix/pseuds/Dominatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has in fact never really left John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Pain is just a simple compromise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/785659) by [Dominatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dominatrix/pseuds/Dominatrix). 



> This is John's view on the happenings in "Pain is just a simple compromise" and what led to it.  
> As "Pain is just a simple compromise", this story is based on Paramore's beautiful song "Misguided Ghosts".  
> I hope you like it  
> Love, Dominatrix

It is a usual day. A painful day. Like always. It’s nothing new. He gets up in the morning, sees Sherlock next to him, still sleeping, but John doesn’t dare to touch him because he knows that his fingers would only touch air. He has tried. More often than he can remember. It had been the worst right the first few days after Sherlock had jumped and left him behind, all by himself. John had not managed to pack away all the things that reminded him of Sherlock.

  
The violin had stayed, although it reminded him of all the nights in which he had listened to Sherlock playing, without finding the courage to come over into the living room.

The Union Jack pillow had stayed, too, although it reminded John how Sherlock sat in the armchair and wrote his blog about these ridiculous 143 sorts of tobacco ash. John doesn’t know how often he has read all of Sherlock’s texts, mostly without understanding anything. But maybe it reminded him that he had been really there once, that he hadn’t been an imagination like he was now.

He had even kept the skull, and he had been a good company before Sherlock started talking to John again. Maybe ghosts also needed a little time to get used to the new circumstances.

Sherlock followed John wherever he went. He was there when he went outside, stood next to him when John was staring at the dark tomb stone, still not really believing what had happened. He was there when John went to sleep at night, although John knew that he would wake up, screaming Sherlock’s name, covered in cold sweat. And Sherlock would lie next to him, and he would caress John’s cheek, and sometimes it would even feel like he was more than just a hallucination.

  
John didn’t tell his therapist about it. He knew that she would worry, that she would give him pills to take. And then Sherlock would disappear like he had before. And John couldn’t imagine how his life would be without this imagination. He had taken the pills a few months ago, and Sherlock had vanished.

There had no longer been this calming voice in his head that reminded him of too many evenings they had spent together. It had been the worst time in those three years that had passed.  
Three years.  
Five months.  
Twenty-four days.

John couldn’t believe it had been such a long time. The days seemed to melt into one another without Sherlock. John still missed him like hell. He started to forget Sherlock’s face, and one terrible morning he couldn’t remember the exact colour of Sherlock’s eyes. He had thrown the pills away. He didn’t care if he was crazy. He just didn’t want to be separated from Sherlock.

The next morning Sherlock had been there again. This time he had been at the door, and the knock had seemed disturbingly real in John’s ears. When John let him in Sherlock looked at him as if he hadn’t seen him in years. He looked at him just as John imagined he would look if Sherlock would just come back to life.

“I’m back, John.” John smiles shortly, but it’s a painful twitch because although Sherlock seems so real John knows that he isn’t. He is just a projection of his mind. Nothing more.  
“I missed you.”  
“I know.”

From that day John can at least allow himself the facade of happiness. And deep inside, maybe he really is because this is all he has ever wanted. Him and Sherlock. Together. It didn’t really matter that Sherlock was not real, that actually he was dead and that John had not been able to do something against it. Sometimes there is this illusion that Sherlock could be reality. But it disappears after a few seconds. The only thing that matters is that Sherlock is still there, and that he won’t leave John again.

When Greg announces his visit with his fiancée, Molly, John is happy. Greg has had hard years, and so had Molly. They had found each other just a few weeks after Sherlock’s death, and John liked to believe that they could just be as happy as he was when he was waking up in the morning, after a rare night without nightmares, and Sherlock was next to him, lazily smiling, a loving expression in his eyes.

“You will stay, won’t you?” John asks Sherlock when he hears the door bell ring and goes to the door.

“I can’t face them all by myself.” He knows that Sherlock has stayed every time, and it had been the slightest hint of comfort when he could look across the room to find Sherlock sitting in his armchair. It had been the only thing that made him survive all the visits of the grieving he had to endure. John had felt proud that in the end it had been him to whom Sherlock had returned. Did that show more than John’s helplessness without Sherlock?

“Of course I will stay here” Sherlock says slowly, and he seems to straighten his back when John opens the door. John forces himself to smile, and it’s not as hard as it used to be because Sherlock is still there. He can still feel him, although he is already scared that maybe one day Sherlock will disappear again without ever coming back.

John is sure that he wouldn’t survive it this time.

A faint scream rips him out of his thoughts. He looks at Molly who has her mouth covered with her hands, and then at Lestrade. He follows his gaze and ends at the armchair in which Sherlock is sitting.

“Hello, Lestrade. Hello, Molly.” The soft sound of his voice shatters the silence before Molly sinks against the wall, almost fainting.

John first faces Sherlock, then Lestrade.

  
“You can see him too?”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Pain is just a simple compromise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/785659) by [Dominatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dominatrix/pseuds/Dominatrix)




End file.
